Posts Tagged ‘Major Keyed Songs’

If you know the original version of the song, be prepared to get mildly weirded out.

Played in a minor key, “Nothing Else Matters” is a brooding ‘us against the world’ manifesto. “Nothing Else Majeur” is relentlessly cheerful. James Hetfield isn’t a grizzled road dog but a giddy school boy joyously expressing how much he digs his chick.

Metallica’s self-titled black album, where “Nothing Else Matters” first appeared, was a polarizing affair back in the day. The dedicated metal-heads who made Metallica a platinum-selling act despite a complete lack of media exposure were annoyed by the group’s bid for mainstream success. Outside of the thrash underground, millions of fans were stoked by the Black Album’s straight-ahead riffs and Hetfield’s arena-god menace. Depending on musical taste, Metallica’s self-titled disc was either the end of a great band or the beginning of a string of successful grunge albums.

“Nothing Else Majeur” makes that fan dichotomy even more pronounced, which is kinda hard to believe.

I don’t understand the process of changing the key of a song, but no matter how it’s done this is pretty wild. Even though I’m not a fan of “Matters”, “Majeur” throws off listener expectations in a goofy yet satisfyingly mind-warping way. You’ve heard the song a million times, but throw in a key change and it goes from an old radio chestnut into something else entirely. It’s kinda like taking a longer slightly more complicated ride home from work. You still arrive at your destination, but you can’t just put your brain on auto-pilot to get there.